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Charleston in Bloom - Spectacular Spring RVing

By Joel Raeber

Labeled the "Garden City of the South", Charleston is in bloom year-round. It is the home of the oldest landscaped gardens, Middleton Place, and the oldest major public garden in America, Magnolia Plantation and its gardens. Private gardens throughout the area are filled with orchids, lilies, roses and arbors.

RVing visitors can tour many of the historic homes and gardens, or you may be lucky enough to catch a peek at a private garden while taking in the sites in the historic district. In March and early spring, it's dogwood, azalea and camellia that draw RVers to the middle of South Carolina's coast at the point "where the Ashley and Cooper Rivers meet to form the Atlantic Ocean."

In 1718, Blackbeard the pirate arrived in Charles Town harbor with four ships and proceeded to take hostages for ransom. This may have been the first recorded visit by "RVers" to what is today Charleston, S.C. Today's RVers will find Charleston's RV parks, gardens, historic houses and museums are happy to have them visit.

With a rich 300-year heritage, history can be found around every corner. Beautifully preserved architectural treasures invite you to step back to when Charleston was the seat of British Rule and culture in America. And garden enthusiasts can learn about Charleston plants and garden design through tours of the many public and private gardens. The Glorious Gardens Lecture series, which runs in conjunction with the Spring Festival of Houses and Gardens organized annually by the Historic Charleston Foundation, is a great way to see some of Charleston's most famous gardens. This year's 58th Annual Festival runs March 17 through April 16, 2005. Sponsored by Historic Charleston Foundation, the Festival features tours of the interiors of approximately 150 historic private houses in 10 colonial and antebellum neighborhoods, and strolls through distinctive private gardens during the peak of the city's blooming season. Tickets are $45. A complete calendar of events can be found on the Foundation's web site at www.historiccharleston.org.

Charleston was founded in April of 1670, when 150 English colonists sailed into the harbor. The travelers landed on a promising location they christened Albemarle Point and named their new settlement Charles Town in honor of their king, Charles II.

With its many wharves along East Bay Street, Charles Town became a busy seaport. Ships carrying raw materials, deerskins, rice, indigo and cotton were exported to England. Ships returned there with staples and luxuries from Europe. By 1740, Charles Town was becoming a critical port in North America for exporting.

The Revolutionary War brought Charleston's Golden Age to a close. In 1778, much of the surrounding countryside was torched, and the British occupied Charles Town. By 1783, Charles Town had been reborn and renamed Charleston.

RVing visitors can stroll the streets or take a carriage ride to visit the city market for Sweetgrass Baskets (or drive out to visit the stands along North Highway 17 to see the baskets being made). You'll also want to visit the Old Slave Market (where slaves were once sold at auction, but today is a popular street market), walk among the city's historical surroundings and see the impact of wars and disasters. Visitors can take a tour to hear about the ghosts that haunt the city, shop for antiques in one of the many shops in the historic district and visit the area's historic homes and gardens. Several livery companies offer carriage rides in the historic district. It's a romantic way to enjoy the sights (and save your feet). Carriage tours of the historic district cover approximately 2 1/2 miles and last about an hour.

A walking tour is one of the best ways to enjoy the city. You can smell the flowers and "touch the gates". This local term refers to the many unique wrought-iron gates leading to private gardens that aren't open to the public, but visitors can touch and appreciate the gates while taking a peek at the garden.

Several tour companies offer guided tours that cover the Civil War, the Revolutionary War, architecture, homes and gardens, churches and graveyards, and literary history.

Resident guides recount Charleston's legendary personalities, the impact of wars and disasters, and reveal the heroic battles that ended the "Golden Age of Piracy", when the city lived under the shadow of the pirate king, Blackbeard and other rogues of the sea, like Stede Bonnet, Richard Worley and the female pirate, Anne Bonny.

The Ghosts of Charleston
The city's most popular walking tour is the "Ghosts of Charleston" tour. The city's haunted restaurants and B&Bs have many witnesses. For instance, Zoe St. Amand is the ghost seen in Poogan's Porch Restaurant. She has been experienced frequently by staff and customers for years, and she also causes chaotic, disembodied paranormal phenomena.

Another "haunted" location is the Battery House Carriage Inn located behind a mansion with a garden nook on South Battery Street. The rooms were once part of the carriage house. The mansion is located in front of the inn and across the street from White Point Gardens, which were used for pirate hangings. The inn has two spirits, a headless torso and a gentle, lonesome spirit. The spirits only visit rooms 8 and 10 in the inn.

The gentle spirit is a thin, well-dressed Victorian man. His mysterious death came by falling from the roof of the five-story mansion in front of the inn. One night, a woman staying in room number 10 with her twin sister noticed a "wispy, gray apparition that appeared to be floating through the closed door, through the chair, and into the room." It floated over toward her, lay down and put its arm around her shoulder. After several tries, she woke her sister, but when the ghost heard the sister's voice, it disappeared. The ghost got the nickname the "Gentleman Ghost" because he likes the ladies and has done this before.

In The Blooms
Charleston's gardens and historic houses are its crowning glory. Magnolia Plantation (800-367-3517) and its gardens, a 17th century estate acquired in 1676 by the Drayton family and whose heirs still own it, was started soon after Charleston's founding. It features year-round blooms of America's oldest gardens, and it boasts one of the largest collections of azaleas and camellias in the country. A pre-Revolutionary War plantation with museum-quality Early American antiques, Biblical garden, antebellum cabin, wildlife observation tower, and canoe and bike rentals, it gives RVers plenty of opportunities for enjoyment. Bird walks are offered Saturday mornings.

For over two and a half centuries, Middleton Place (800-367-3517) has welcomed RVers and other visitors from all over the world. The 65 acres of landscaped terraces, ornamental ponds and garden rooms laid out with precise symmetry make Middleton Place the most unique and grand garden of its time. Today, as they did then, the gardens represent the Low Country's most spectacular expression of an 18th century ideal-the triumphant marriage between man and nature. Surrounded by America's oldest landscaped gardens is Middleton Place House Museum. The museum features family portraits, furniture, silver and documents belonging to the Middletons, who signed the Declaration of Independence and the Ordinance of Secession.

RVers will want to spend time touring some of the other historic homes in Charleston:

• The Heyward-Washington House was built in 1772 and rented for George Washington when he visited Charleston in 1791.
• Drayton Hall was completed in 1742 and is the only plantation house on the Ashley River that survived the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
• The Aiken-Rhett House is one of only a few remaining in the South that provides complete documentation of antebellum life.
• The Edmondson-Alston House was built in 1825 and rebuilt in 1838. It was featured on the "America's Castles" TV series and features Greek Revival detailing.
• The Joseph Manigault House is an example of Adams-style architecture, and was built in 1803.

On April 12, 1861, Confederate troops fired the first shots of the Civil War, shelling Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor. But by early 1865 when General William Sherman crossed the Savannah River, he noted that the port city had lost its influence and was already "a mere desolated wreck...hardly worth the time to starve it out." A powerful symbol to both the South and the North, Fort Sumter remains a memorial to all who fought to hold it. RVers can visit Fort Sumter National Monument by private boat or by ferry. Fort Sumter Tours (800-789-3678) offers daily tours from two convenient locations: Liberty Square in downtown Charleston, or in Mt. Pleasant at the Patriots Point Maritime Museum. The Patriots Point location offers unlimited free parking and easy access for RVers who want to avoid the crowded downtown area.

At the Charles Naval Shipyard, visitors can visit the H.L. Hunley, the recovered Confederate submarine that sank off Charleston in 1864. The Hunley and her 8-man crew had completed the first successful submarine attack in history when she disappeared. The 65,000 pound sub was pulled from the Atlantic 4 1/2 miles off Sullivan's Island in 2000 and is now on display at the Warren Lasch Conservation center on Charleston's Old Navy Base, at 1250 Supply Street. Tours are only available on weekends.

Following the Civil War, Charlestonians were too poor to remodel so the city simply adapted her old buildings. Then in 1886, a major earthquake rocked the city, damaging more than 2,000 buildings and killing 110 people. As a result, iron rods were run through the interiors of buildings and fastened to the exterior walls to protect them from future quakes. Today, these round and star-shaped bolts remain visible on many homes and commercial buildings in the historic district.

Charleston is considered the birthplace for American golf and has an international reputation as one of golf's premier destinations. Golf enthusiasts can find more than two dozen golf courses that boast many of the top names in course architecture, from Tom Fazio and Arnold Palmer to Robert Trent Jones and Jack Nicklus.

RVers looking for a convenient staging area for their visit to Charleston can check out James Island County Park, located just minutes from downtown and the beach. The park has RV camping and even provides a shuttle service to the downtown historic district for a small fee. With miles of paved trails for walking, biking and skating, 16 acres of freshwater lakes for fishing, an unrestricted fishing and crabbing dock (saltwater) and children's Funyard playground, the James Island County Park offers a break from sightseeing and touring.

Additional RV parks and campgrounds are located around Charleston, including: Lake Aire RV Park and Campground in Hollywood, Mt. Pleasant KOA Campground in Mt. Pleasant, and The Oaks at Point South in Yemassee.
If you haven't visited Charleston, or if you haven't visited recently, now is the time to set your sights and plan to go.

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